Grooveshark has been shutdown, advises to use legal services instead

Grooveshark announced on April 30 that its site has been shut down. Grooveshark was one of the first site to offer music streaming to its users for free. The problem was that the site, despite offering millions of songs to its users, never had any deals with music labels. Escape Media Group Inc., Grooveshark’s parent company, admitted that due to a settlement with record companies, the site has to cease operation of all its Grooveshark service including apps and website. In order to make sure that Grooveshark does not resurrect later in the future like the Pirate Bay did, part of the settlement is that Escape Media Group Inc. must hand over ownership of the Grooveshark domain, apps, and patents to music labels. When visiting grooveshark.com, here’s what the company says regarding to the situation:

Dear music fans,

Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.

We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.

That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.

As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.

At the time of our launch, few music services provided the experience we wanted to offer – and think you deserve. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from, including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others.

If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders holders. You can find out more about the many great services available where you live here: http://whymusicmatters.com/find-music.

It has been a privilege getting to know so many of you and enjoying great music together. Thank you for being such passionate fans.

Yours in music,

Your friends at Grooveshark

April 30, 2015

As you can read, Groovesharks is now advising its users to obtain their music from sources that compensate the artist for their work. Some of their recommended services include Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio. Take this with a grain of salt. Although this could be written by Grooveshark themselves out their heart and admitting that what they were doing was unlawful, it could also be that the music labels forced them to write it as part of the settlement.